“Apple really did think different about its new laptops,” Dan Ackerman writes for CNET. “The sheer number of big-picture changes to the iconic laptop line made my head spin during an exclusive hands-on preview of Apple’s new MacBook Pro laptops at the company’s Cupertino, California headquarters earlier this week. While Apple kept the MacBook Pro name it’s used since 2006, nearly everything about the new generation of the high end notebook has changed.”

“The long-rumored ‘Magic Toolbar,’ an OLED-display strip for context-sensitive touch commands, is real. Apple calls it the Touch Bar, and it’s worth all the hubbub,” Ackerman writes. “Just 60 pixels high (and 2,170 pixels wide), the Touch Bar could be a tool with the potential to be the Swiss Army knife of laptop input, changing itself on the fly to work across different apps, imitating a series of touch buttons, control sliders and even jog dials. This is Apple’s answer to the touchscreens found on most Windows laptops.”

MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote during our live coverage, “This is the smart way to have Multi-Touch on your personal computer, as opposed to the stupidity of smearing fingers all over your Retina display.”

“The possibilities seem limitless,” Ackerman writes. “The touchpad, which still uses Apple’s Force Touch technology, now spans twice the surface area of the previous MacBook Pro’s touchpad. It’s massive — completely dominating the front of the interior. It’s also a bold challenge for other laptops to try and match…”

MacDailyNews Take: The quality of Apple’s Force Touch trackpad is unmatched. No other PC maker comes close – and hasn’t for years. Combined with the new Touch Pad, Apple has delivered the future of notebooks now (well, within 2-3 weeks). Happy road-warrioring!

Kaby would have been nice, and I don’t know its specs, but it seems like the last few Core iterations have been focusing more on power conservation than processing increases. I think Moore’s Law is dead. I’m not sure that in the majority of what I use my MB Pro for that I would notice the difference between Sky or Kaby Lake.

Seriously, if you cannot see productivity possibilities of this then you have no imagination. It doesn’t even take imagination. The demos provided convinced me that the Touch Bar is a fantastic addition.

I can imagine 3rd party programmers making custom layout of functionality for individual users a reality in short order.

At one time with a 2D CAD program, I had over 50 custom command keys set up with everything from simple menu choices to Quickeys sets of a dozen or more instructions to automate a complex procedure of steps that I would do over and over every day.

I’m worried about apples path, they’re more concerned about an emoji bar than new products. Yes they’re making money, but I’m thinking that the new spaceship camp, will be full of un-inventive over paid buddy executives, twiddling their thumbs & getting big rewards, for agreeing with everything Johnny decides.

No need to worry. There are lots of things cooking behind the scene. It doesn’t always happen when you want. The only question to ask is, will you want it when it happens. Apple’s track record says, YES. I definitely want that MB Pro.

art2: Good call, but come to think of it, media pros don’t usually use the TRS headphone jack anyway, or Beats for that matter. For everyone else there will be adaptors, or TB versions of products like this: http://www.apogeedigital.com/products/groove

Because deep down Apple knows that the best names in the audio industry aren’t going to support the overpriced proprietary Lightning connector. It does nothing that USB-C cannot and it costs more. So watch as Apple sunsets the Lightning in a few years. The Mac will be updated only every 4-5 years going forward, so what you see is what Apple believes is best for their needs

Meanwhile Apple’s obvious strategy for near term future profit is adapters. Lots of clunky white adapters with square edges to catch on everything and which look grungy gray after a few uses.

Premium user experience my ass. At the prices Apple charges, buyers should get one of each of the adapters they need at time of Mac purchase for free.

Seems to me that the regular Apple fanboy contingent regularly pans the Microsoft Surface, or the HP Spectre, or Dell Precision laptops without bothering to use them either. You reap what you sow.

I still can’t see why i would want to look down at an ever-changing function bar. MS did the ribbon thing with its apps a decade ago and it sucked.

I get it that Apple is trying very hard to push touchscreens onto the Mac without actually providing a full touchscreen. For that I am grateful. Smudged screens and imprecise finger dragging sucks. But a little OLED strip just doesn’t strike me as a huge benefit to my user experience. The demos didn’t do it for me.

Most of the time when working I use a trackball with significantly greater precision than a fingertip, and a lot more scroll wheels for making adjustments and zooming and stuff. Best of all, I don’t have to move my hands up to the top of the keyboard.

I see this for what it is: style changes and incremental update following Apple’s worn-out “thinner must be better” meme.

I think Apple just moved the Mac Pro out of pricing competition for those who just do light office work, and not far enough for those who really need a mobile workstation with ability to easily pop in SD cards and natively plug into projectors and stuff without hassle. The Mac Pro is an inbetween device that just costs a lot for no superior performance.

Meanwhile, the huge contingent of desktop users wait for iMacs with 30″ screens and updated GPUs, etc. Mac Pro owners wait for proper workstation performance and internal expansion. Prosumers wait for the Mini and mid-range towers that can act as home servers or media centers or just kickass home PCs that can support dual 4K monitors for gaming or whatever.

And where is Apple? They are busy trying to shave off another millimeter from the next box they found in the back of their dusty warehouse, behind all the iOS kid stuff.

Hey wait a minute..I just found a WordPerfect keyboard template. And it shows me what keys do what in WordPerfect. Hey I found one for Lotus 123 too. How original. You just grab a $4 keyboard and put a paper template over it and it tells you what each key does in that software.